


Radio Static

by SparklingDragonTears



Series: In the dark [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 150_prompts, Adult Stiles, Boys with feelings, Broken Peter, Broken Stiles, Clone Stiles, Gen, Healing, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Peter Hale, Morally Ambiguous Stiles Stilinski, Police Officer Stiles Stilinski, Running Away, Stiles can never be a wolf, Vampires, Void remnants, implied peter/stiles - Freeform, post void!stiles, talking about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23302717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparklingDragonTears/pseuds/SparklingDragonTears
Summary: Prompt 7: "What if I never get better?"Sequel to A hell of a team.Stiles is broken. Peter is broken.Somewhere between them there has to be some light to keep away the dark.Stiles and Peter go for a drive and talk.
Relationships: Peter Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: In the dark [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1675834
Comments: 4
Kudos: 102
Collections: Snake Noodle's 150 Prompts





	Radio Static

**Author's Note:**

> Number 7: "What if I never get better?"
> 
> Another because I like adult Stiles and Peter being friends/ambiguous lovers?
> 
> Happy quarantine.  
> Wash your hands.

“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to let civilians ride along.” Peter said, but rolled down the passenger window of the cruiser anyway.

Stiles smirked beside him, not taking his eyes off the road. Peter watched the reflection of the road pass in Stiles’ aviators. He looked like he belonged in a movie. Peter couldn’t quite tell whether he would be the hero or the villain, which didn’t bother him in the slightest.

“What happens when your father happens to review the body cam footage?” He asked, reaching over and flipping through the radio stations.

“I hear the wires in these things come loose all the time,” Stiles said with a half-shrug, fighting a grin.

Peter settled on a classic rock station and watched the trees whiz by as Stiles headed aimlessly down the highway. He let them cruise for a few minutes before piping up helpfully again.

“Forgive my ignorance, but isn’t your patrol limited to Beacon Hills?” He asked as the exit sign for their county flew by his window. 

“I’m the son of the Sheriff,” Stiles huffed out a laugh. “Since when have I been limited to anything?”

Peter raised his eyebrows in acceptance. Not that he particularly minded being beside the young man on a gorgeous day anyway, but since coming back from the tunnels, Peter had felt his skin crawling whenever he was alone. He wasn’t about to let his sudden company kick him out.

They drove in silence for a good twenty minutes, Peter occasionally glancing at the road signs, noticing specifically that Stiles was steadfastly ignoring them. He was about to settle in for a long ride, and possibly a nap, when Stiles suddenly spoke roughly.

“What if I never get better?” He asked out of no where, voice quiet and low. 

Peter was only just able to discern the voice with his astute hearing through the staticky music. He had suspected there was an ulterior motive to Stiles picking him up from his walk today. He sighed softly, unsure there was a right answer, or even one the young officer might be looking for.

He looked over Stiles’ face deeply, noting how square his jaw had grown, how deep the lines around his eyes carved, how he looked so much like his father, even at his relatively low number of years. Stiles frowned at the road before them, drumming his fingers on the wheel with the same nervous energy that had always buzzed within him, forever keeping him a live wire.

Peter idly wondered when it would burn him out.

When the wolf was silent for a few moments, contemplating the question and answer, Stiles glanced over to find him staring, brows drawn, eyes piercing even through the outrageously expensive sunglasses he adorned. He opened his mouth to retract the question, when Peter spoke.

“I don’t know that ‘better’ is a state of being, Darling.” Peter answered slowly, like he was testing each word before it rolled off his tongue.

Stiles nodded slowly, turning his attention back to the road. Peter could scent the disappointment flooding from his skin.

“That said,” He continued, not bothering to question why he needed the scent to sweeten a little before he could be content again. “I wouldn’t necessarily say it weren’t worth the attempt.”

Stiles’ interest was sparked. He quirked an eyebrow in question, leading Peter to continue, bullshitting his entire answer word-by-word, doing his best to twist it into his usual silk. He knew Stiles would see through it in a heartbeat, but it didn’t stop him from trying.

“In my experience, ‘better’ is someone else’s opinion.” Peter closed his eyes, hoping to think a bit more clearly. “It won’t go away, and it won’t stop trying to crush you, if you let it. It will just become… less vicious.”

“Isn’t that ‘better’?” Stiles asked after a slight pause.

“ _There are two wolves inside of you…_ ” Peter answered instead, trailing off, knowing Stiles knew the proverb as well as any of them.

Stiles was quiet for a long time. Peter sat back in the seat, arms behind his head, eyes closed, listening to Stiles’ every breath over the hum of the tires while he worked out his mind puzzles.

“I… I wanted to kill him,” Stiles whispered, not bothering to specify who.

Peter finally cracked an eye open.

“I know.” He answered easily. Stiles nodded, but did not look his way.

“I mean, by my hands, not yours.” He said with a swallow. Peter huffed a light laugh.

“I know.” He repeated, closing his eye again. He gave Stiles time to explain his thoughts, if he so chose.

“Have you felt the pull of a Glamour?” Stiles asked instead, surprising him.

Peter sat up and regarded Stilinski carefully. He was still speeding down the lost roads without aim, pulling further away from their lives with every second, although his face was schooled into his _everything-is-fine_ mask.

“It doesn’t affect us,” He answered, watching as Stiles scowled, cracking the illusion. “I’ve read about it, though.”

“It took everything in me not to jump into his arms, let him sink his teeth in me.” Stiles ground his teeth bitterly. “They did that to _kids_ … I… _It_ comes back when I remember I’m human.” 

He didn’t have to explain. He knew that Peter had sensed the monster’s shadow.

Reaching over, Peter braved to take one of Stiles’ hands from the wheel, prying his tight fingers free, letting them close again around his own. He didn’t offer any placating advice, no ‘ _it’s not you_ ’ or ‘ _it’s not real_ ’. Peter knew how fucking real it was. Every day he felt his own darkness threaten to fight its way out. He wouldn’t dare offend the boy by patronizing him.

“As much as any of us,” Peter answered casually, taking it as a personal victory when Stiles finally pulled off into a dirt clearing beside the road, slamming into park and letting the cruiser idle in the little lost patch of forest. Peter watched quietly as he yanked off his sunglasses and tossed them on the dashboard, rubbing his fists over his eyes in frustration. He felt a perverse satisfaction that it was him with whom Stiles let down his guard.

“That’s the problem!” He growled, impressively wolf-like and incredibly vague.

“Do you want the bite?” Peter asked, half curiosity, half offer. Stiles scoffed, but did not reply. Peter suspected it had to do with the fact that he wasn’t an alpha and couldn’t really make the offer. “Derek will do it if you want him to.” 

He was positive of this. The only reason the boy had never been turned was his own sheer stubbornness. He had long been claimed by Hale and McCall, simultaneously. And Stiles was a god damned liar if he’d suggest otherwise. 

Stiles suddenly sobered, finally making eye contact with Peter. His mile-deep eyes blindsided Peter with the reminder that he had lost his humanity years ago.

“It might not take in this body.” His voice told Peter of his resignation, that he’d researched obsessively, as he tended to do, and this was the conclusion he’d drawn. 

It was rare that his conclusions were incorrect.

“This body…” Peter echoed reverently. He so often remembered the horrible darkness inside of Stiles that he’d forgotten the boy it had consumed. Stiles’ body had been destroyed, by the very darkness echoed in this clone and by the venom of an alpha, which burned the demon and with it, the last of Stiles’ humanity into dust. 

Stiles was only human in the unfair ways. Peter tried not to think of it when he noticed the purple rings and crows feet threatening his young face, when he bled freely without healing, when his heartbeat succumbed to calls of supernatural voices. 

When Stiles looked a little too long into his face, searching for whatever light Peter used to keep away his own dark.

This time, Stiles took his hand.

It was only later, when he was alone in his apartment, buried in the covers that Peter would mourn for the loss of his human, of _their_ human, properly for the first time. Stiles could never know the way his heart wrenched for the wolf that would never surface, the fox who could never truly become a member of their packs.

For the time being, Peter allowed his remorse to show for only a moment, knowing he couldn’t fool Stiles if he tried to hide it. He nodded an affirmative, squeezing his hand tightly around Stiles’, until his eye twitched in a wince.

Stiles watched him a moment more, face blank with his turmoil of thoughts. He finally gave Peter a small smile and tugged his hand gently free. Reaching out, he slid the aviators back over his eyes, a shield from whatever Peter wanted to find, not that he didn’t know the wolf could scent his every feeling before he probably felt it himself.

He pulled the cruiser back to the road, but hesitated to turn left or right, back to reality or further from their little world of damnation. 

“Well?” Peter asked after a moment, prodding him into making a decision. “Are we going home or never looking back?”

We. He asked so casually that Stiles was certain he would pick up and start over new if and when he so decided. 

Another hesitated moment and Stiles turned left. 

Peter let his eyes sink closed, holding his palm open on his leg, waiting for Stiles to decide he needed steady contact again. He could feel the beacon pulling them back, warm and calling in his chest the closer they drove back to the town. The radio lulled him into a pleasant haze, surrounded by Stiles’ scent, his heartbeat a steady drum beat threatening to pull him under.

Just as he drifted into a dream, he felt long fingers twisting through his own.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again everyone. I love you all.
> 
> Till next time,  
> -J X


End file.
